I was looking around “Yahoo Answers” for some ideas about relevant and useful pet information I might share with you, faithful readers, and I found one that started me thinking about pet arthritis, specifically, how would you answer this question: “How do I know if my dog has arthritis?”

The simple and very unsatisfactory answer would be: Only your vet can tell for sure, and even then he/she could be wrong. Obviously, though, if you suspect your dog or cat may have arthritis, you should take that pet to a vet as soon as possible.

Besides that, the symptoms, or “hints” you need to watch for are pretty similar to the symptoms humans exhibit when they have arthritis, especially the most obvious symptom: Your dog or cat tends to “favor” a limb or paw, hesitating to put much or even any weight on it and perhaps showing a limp when walking. Although infected or abscessed bites from cat or dog fights can cause this, if an older pet shows such symptoms, arthritis is a likely cause.

Other signs that could mean your pet has arthritis may include:

Difficulty sitting or standing

Sleeping more

Seeming to have stiff or sore joints

Hesitancy to jump, run or climb stairs

Weight gain

Decreased activity or less interest in play

Attitude or behavior changes

Being less alert

Admittedly, some of these symptoms are pretty vague and even general. But you owe it to your aging pet, if these symptoms are showing and you are at all concerned, to get a solid diagnosis from your vet and a course of treatment. Old pets, like old people, don’t have to suffer from arthritis when there is often help available.

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I’m personally not a golfer, but always thought I’d like to get started at it. But if you’re a golfer, and if you’ve ever been to Las Vegas or wanted to go there, this “Useful Website” for the morning is just what you’re looking for — “Las Vegas Golf Authority.”

This site offers everything you’ll need to customize your very own Las Vegas golf holidays, from information on Las Vegas’ world class golf courses to accommodations at the city’s many fine hotels. You’ve got to love a golf site for Las Vegas with a slogan like theirs: “Don’t Gamble with Your Golf in Las Vegas.”

This website itself is beautiful, and it tells you everything you need to know and gives you the necessary links — web links, I mean — to plan and reserve everything for your golfing pleasure in Las Vegas.

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My wife had been a lacto-ovo vegetarian since about 1986. I was also a lacto-ovo vegetarian until I developed an occasional craving for KFC original recipe chicken one day in 2001. You might think it odd that I remember the years so well, but it’s because I was the one who started the whole business by trumpeting to family and friends that I was now a vegetarian in 1986.

After three weeks of occasional sounding off and fanfare about the whole vegetarian decision, I noticed my wife, too, had quit eating meat. We only fixed it for our two then-teen kids. My wife, Shirley, is a much more “stable,” mature person than I and once she decides to do something — she simply DOES it. Her life is best characterized day-after-day by that well-worn Nike slogan:”Just do it.”

I remember my 2001 downfall so clearly because I had taken my wife to an airport about 200 miles from our home so she could fly to Oregon to visit her elderly mother. I stayed overnight in the city, rather than do the 200 miles in the wee hours. For whatever reason, as I sat there in the motel watching TV, I had this craving for the KFC, put my feelings of guilt (!) aside, and went out and bought a huge white-meat special deal of some kind.

Since then, I generally join my wife in her lacto-ovo vegetarianism, but still occasionally eat friend chicken. Yeah, not that good an idea, I know.

How about you? Are you vegetarian? If so, what “brand” or sort of vegetarianism do you follow — and would you care to tell us why?

I titled this post the way I have because, ultimately, I find pet lovers more aware of animal and animal rights issues. Indeed, most pet owners/lovers I know either are vegetarian, or have thought about and/or tried vegetarianism. It just seems normal to me, since I love pets, to realize it isn’t that necessary to classify one form of animal as “food” or “meat,” and another as “pet” or “friend.”

Share your thoughts with us, please.

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Here’s a rather bizarre story about a pet shop owner in Indiana who was busted for posing as a veterinarian. What makes this bizarre is not just the man’s claim, but the way he decided to do some bragging — which ended up getting him busted.

The guy’s pet shop name gives you something of a clue about his downfall: “Reptile Emporium.” He styled himself as a “reptile veterinarian, a herpetologist and a reptile specialist.” He might have been able to fake his way through the whole matter, except he bragged to undercover agents that he had a 9.5 foot long, 250 pound alligator which he let roam loose in the store at night as his “attack gator.”

Of course, when undercover agents heard that, they couldn’t help but bust into the store. They found no alligator, but they did find records indicating that the man was a fraud and charged him with practicing veterinary medicine without a license.

If there’s any moral to this story for us, I suppose it would be this — be very skeptical if a pet shop owner tells you he is a veterinarian and don’t allow him to treat your pet(s) without proof of his expertise and proper licensing.

But I’m guessing you already knew that, didn’t you?

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Anyone reading this interested in having a forum for pets and pet lovers here? Yes, honestly, if you have a pet who can keyboard and put together a couple of coherent paragraphs, I will indeed allow your pet to participate in the forum. Otherwise, you’ll have to do it for him/her/it.

Seriously, I’ve given some thought to adding a forum here related to pets and all the themes I’ve been addressing, and you’ve been commenting on, in this blog.

I would love to generate interest and provide a “community” for pet lovers in a forum. I even have some easy-to-install software that works with my WordPress blogging software and creates a good forum. At least I’ve been TOLD it’s easy to install and very worthwhile.

Whatever it takes, if I get some interest, I will seriously consider setting up a forum for the use of our little pets and pet lovers community in this small corner of the Internet universe.

Tell me what you think of the idea. To forum or not to forum? That is my question for you.

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Welcome back to “For Pets and Pet Lovers.” We’ve been gone for awhile following a serious webhosting server crash. My webhost — FORMER webhost, I should say — worked hard to get everything back up and running. Unfortunately, they lost all the data on the server which crashed, and I had failed to keep good backups.

So I’m in the process of rebuilding 30 blog and affiliate marketing websites.

If you’ve been here in the past, welcome back. If this is your first time, welcome and I hope you’ll return. My purpose is to provide a way we can all share pet stories, pet tips, even some pet photos, and certainly some pet “tales” and care ideas. As a lifetime pet lover and current “Daddy” to an aging tabby cat named Tigra, I hope we can enjoy some pet fun and ideas together.

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